1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to systems and methods for glass recycling and, more particularly, to brokering mechanisms related to buying and selling recycled glass.
2. Background of the Invention
Cost-effective recycling of materials such as glass has become an increasingly important issue to many businesses due, for example, to ever increasing legislative mandates at the federal, state and local levels, and the associated cost of complying therewith. In a conventional recycling process, entities typically interact with each other on an individual and/or ad hoc basis.
FIG. 1, generally at 100, shows entities within a recycling process that include originator points 110a-n, collectors 120a-n, material recovery facilities (MRFs) 130a-n, beneficiators 140a-n, glass plants 150a-n, and bottlers 160a-n. In FIG. 1, the lines connecting the various entities represent both communication (e.g., electronic/computerized and/or telephonic) that may take place between the various entities, as well as a physical flow of goods. For example, MRF 130c may communicate with and/or deliver goods, for example, to beneficiator 140g and/or glass plant 150b. 
Originator points 110a-n are areas where a waste originator can deposit waste. Originator points 110a-n may include, for example, community drop-off points and/or reverse vending sites. Originator points 110a-n may perform the function of separating waste into recyclables and non-recyclables. Waste originators may include commercial generators (e.g., a restaurant generating wine bottles and/or beer cans), as well as residential generators.
Collectors 120a-n receive solid waste from originator points 110a-n, and generally perform functions such as separating, for example, paper from commingled plastics, glass and/or metal objects. Collectors 120a-n can also separate recyclables into glass, paper, and plastics, and place the separated material into respective bins for collection. In addition, collectors 120a-n may also sort glass by color. Collectors 120a-n may also commingle glass, paper, plastics and metals together, as a single stream collection.
The material from collectors 120a-n is transported to a MRF 130a-n or, if the material is clean enough, directly to a beneficiator 140a-n. MRFs 130a-n provide additional cleaning and/or sorting of the material. For example, MRFs 130a-n may further sort recyclable material from non-recyclable material and/or perform a finer sort of recyclables by type, such as glass, plastics, and paper. Glass may be sorted by color (e.g., into amber, green, and flint) and/or to further remove contaminants, such as ceramics.
During the processing of recyclables, a large percentage, typically greater than 50% by weight, of the collected glass falls out and is rendered unusable due, for example, to the size of the glass pieces. Glass that is less than approximately 2.5 inches in diameter is generally undesirable because it is too small to be effectively color-sorted by hand, is difficult to color-sort optically, and is difficult to contaminant-sort. Sorting out the pieces of glass less than approximately 2.5 inches in diameter results in a large quantity of residual mixed-color glass (hereinafter, mixed cullet) that currently has limited, if any, market value. Mixed cullet of flint, amber and green glass is referred to herein as three color mixed cullet (C3MC).
Conventional MRFs 130a-n (and beneficiators 140a-n) typically amass stockpiles of mixed cullet and/or C3MC, which is typically used either as a landfill daily cover material, or is further processed, at an additional cost, so that it can be used in glassphalt (a highway paving material in which recovered ground glass replaces some of the gravel in asphalt) and/or aggregate (material such as glass, sand or small stones mixed with a binder such as cement to produce mortars and concrete). Disposal in a landfill, whether as residue or landfill cover, does not allow the glass to be re-used, and adds to the mass in landfills. Even if a MRF 130a-n or a beneficiator 140a-n utilizes optical sorting equipment that can, at additional cost, process and sort the C3MC by color, the percentage of C3MC recovered is rarely, if ever, 100%. Thus, it would be desirable if greater quantities and percentages of mixed cullet and/or C3MC that results from processing performed by MRFs 130a-n and beneficiators 140a-n could be utilized in an economically viable manner.
Once the glass has been sorted by color, MRFs 130a-n then transport the color-sorted glass and, optionally, any mixed-color glass and/or C3MC to beneficiators 140a-n for further processing. If beneficiators 140a-n have limited or no optical color-sorting capabilities, beneficiators 140a-n generally will not order and/or accept delivery of mixed-color glass and/or C3MC from MRFs 130a-n. If beneficiators 140a-n have a color sorting capability, beneficiators 140a-n can color sort the C3MC, and blend one or more sorted colors of cullet in with other (e.g., previously delivered) glass of the same color (e.g., flint, amber or green). The combined glass may then be sorted for contaminants such as organics, ceramics, and any other non-glass debris.
As a matter of economics, however, flint cullet is the only color of cullet that can generally be profitably color sorted. Although green and amber cullet can be color sorted, it typically is either discarded, or blended into flint glass in small percentages to avoid substantial or unacceptable color contamination and/or rejection by glass plants 150a-n. Thus, even if beneficiators 140a-n sort out flint cullet, a significant percentage of green and amber cullet typically remains. This presents a number of issues, including storage and eventual disposal of the mixed cullet. Thus, it would be desirable if greater quantities of mixed cullet that results from beneficiators 140a-n processing could be utilized in an economically viable manner.
Conventional glass plants 150a-n receive a quantity of color-sorted glass from beneficiators 140a-n. Existing glass, including cullet, has been used as a substitute for virgin glass raw materials at percentages up to 70%-80%. The use of recycled glass advantageously results, for example, in less energy required to produce a same quantity of glass, less pollution from the glass manufacturing process, less wear and tear and maintenance cost associated with equipment such as furnaces, and less landfill waste.
Glass plants 150a-n may add a percentage of color-specific glass from beneficiators 140a-n or MRFs 130a-n, which generally closely matches the color of the glass article being manufactured at glass plants 150a-n. The color-specific glass acts as a substitute for a portion of the required virgin glass raw materials. Once the appropriate amounts of glass from beneficiators 140a-n and virgin glass raw materials have been added to the batch, the glass manufacturing process proceeds as normal to produce a glass article, e.g., a glass bottle. Once the glass articles are produced, they are transported to bottlers/retailers 160a-n, which fill the bottles using conventional and well-known bottling techniques.
We have discovered that no single company or entity has generally integrated, physically and/or logically, at least some of the entities in system 100 in order to facilitate purchase and/or shipment of glass and/or cullet, for example, to glass plants 150a-n. We have determined that there are inefficiencies and lost market opportunities associated with having entities within the glass recycling process and/or industry interact with each other on an individual basis. We have also determined that facilitating market transactions may reduce the cost associated with producing glass.
We have thus discovered that no active centralized market for cullet currently exists. Therefore, each entity must negotiate for its own needs, generally on an entity-entity basis. We have further determined that if a means to increase the amount of cullet used in glass manufacturing is provided, there would be a further need to facilitate the purchase and sale of cullet between, for example, MRFs 130a-n, beneficiators 140a-n, and glass plants 150a-n. 